Overall, I found the entire revision process to be very helpful in tidying up and improving my draft. I received a lot of feedback that I didn’t notice myself, but the most helpful one was on the organization or my paper. I saw that for a certain section of my paper, I had ideas all over the place. It logically made sense in my head, but having outside perspectives read it helped me notice that it in fact was not as organized as I thought. 

Upon research on my topic, I came to learn that secularization in America was a much more complicated process than I thought. I knew secularization was definitely a thing that happened/is happening, but I never made the connection between it and events such as the Cold War or 9/11. As we all know, political polarization is very real as seen in the video of Congress we saw in class, but looking at the big picture, I was surprised to see that the topic that I chose played a role in that whole process. 

To make a broad statement, secularization is a key factor that’s shaping America. With its contribution to political polarization in the US, secularization is leading to a lot of other broad issues that will have an effect on the entire country and on all of our lives. Perhaps secularization will reach a point where it’ll go from “non-religious” to “anti-religious” if current rates keep up. That will get our government to a point of complete divide with no middle ground, setting us all up for failure as the “United” States. 

I think it’s safe to say that we all wrote a lot for this project. Ten pages worth of “a lot”. Just the general practice I got from writing so much really helped me develop as a writer, but looking at the purpose and style of this assignment, I believe I developed a skill for appealing to my audience and considering them more as I wrote. Overall, I developed my skills of making claims, providing evidence to support those claims, and deepening the broader idea by providing analyses, which is a system of writing that is applicable to any prompt.

• Intro
  • Hook- introduction of topic
    • Secularization is a word that may spark different thoughts in most people, whether that be a specific religion or a certain concept. No matter what comes to mind, there’s no doubt that secularization is indeed increasing in the US and will soon have an effect on all of us.
  • Establishment of shift’s occurrence => point to evidence
    • Over the course of 44 years of a particular religious survey, data shows that the proportion of “no religion” has topped the proportions of major religious groups in the US for the first time in 2018 and continues to rise
      • From 1970-2018, “no religion” has grown from merely 5% to a whopping 23% while the major/mainline religious groups experienced general declines
    • Today, about ⅕ American adults consider themselves unaffiliated with religion, which is a ten times increase from the previous 1/50 in 1960
  • Thesis- non-obvious claim/assertion of what changed, causes, and implication (why it matters)
    • In the past century, secularization, the decrease of religious affiliation/beliefs, has certainly been on the rise in America initially due to events such as the end of the Cold War and 9/11 and continues with increased automation/modernization, which would take a toll on all of our lives as secularization causes political polarization, indirectly shaping the nation.

• Body: 3 sections (not all sections 1 paragraph)
  • Review of shift
    • Before & After (elevation lol) of the shift
      • Before 
        • For much of the 20th century, more than 9/10 Americans considered themselves religious
          • Religious values dominated American culture/society
        • Cold war (USSR atheist)
          • Prior to the shift, the ongoing Cold War stabilized the non-religious/atheist USSR as America’s enemy
          • Social pressure to claim unaffiliated
      • After
        • Favorability of religion decreases
          • I.e. 9/11
        • Political polarization
        • America less religion-dominated
          • Future generations more and more secular
          • Inc of rational thinking & explanations
          • Found alternatives in life to worship & prioritize

• • Analysis of causes
    • Scholar’s reasons for shift
      • Cold war, 9/11, etc
        • Cold war
          • The USSR, the enemy of the US during the cold war, was founded on the concept of atheism 
          • Claiming to be non-religious/atheist in the US (sensitive against such ideas) would be socially unacceptable and restricting
        • 9/11
          • The biggest terror attack on the US was done by religious individuals/nation
          • People grow resistant to even the idea of religion
      • Automation (AI & robotics)
        • As AI & robotics were achieved and seem to be capable of performing beyond our comprehension,
          • People turn to worship automation, as there’s visible/physical proof of their existence
          • no one doubts the existence & development of automations while many doubt religious deities
      • Modernization
        • Inc of education
        • Inc of rational/critical thinking
          • Attempt to explain things in logical/understandable ways away from existing spiritual/ambiguous explanations
        • Pursue continuously modernizing definitions of success, joy, etc
  • Evidence to support cause analyses
    • Cold war, 9/11, etc
    • Automation
      • Numerous studies confirmed correlations between automation exposure and religious affiliation
        • robotics/AI exposure is negatively associated with religiosity
        • Metropolitan areas with higher levels of robotic growth experienced a 3% annual decline of religion

• • • Modernization
      • Financial security
        • Europe has greater secularization and has lower poverty rates than the US
      • Education
        • Atheists tend to have greater academic achievements than those who are religious
      • By these statistics, it would logically make sense for individuals to throw religious beliefs away to pursue success & joy of the modern world

• Critique- what are scholars saying about consequences/implications of shift?
  • Questions to consider:
    • Consensus or disagreement about implications?
      • Religion, specifically secularization on the left, is widely accepted as a cause of political depolarization
      • Wide consensus
    • Points of contention?
      • None
      • Secularization will undoubtedly has increased and will continue to increase political polarization
  • More questions:
    • Greater significance?
    • Why does it ultimately matter?
      • As politics become more and more polarized, so will the people that associate with political parties
      • Whether one is religious or not, national secularization will come back around full circle to have an effect on our everyday lives as the nation and its policies will be shaped by a greatly polarized government

• Conclusion
  • Resolve the discussion
    • The secularization of America happened/is happening without a doubt
    • This secularization will prove to have an impact on our society and lives as it polarizes politics and the government
  • Suggest opportunities for further study on the issue
    • Will trend continue?
      • The trend will definitely continue, as shown by the “progress” it’s made up until this point
        • Will the rate grow or slow?
    • Or morph into something else?
      • What could the “something” be?
        • Possibly into “anti-religion” rather than “no religion”?

Gym culture is a relatively new idea that I’m sure we can all agree emerged in fairly recent years. It’s not that gym culture didn’t exist prior to its emergence, but this idea of fitness and going to the gym became widespread and became known just lately: specifically during the covid pandemic. 

In the past two or three years, gym culture has gained so much traction thanks to the covid lockdown that got us all out of shape. As I’m sure we’re all aware, covid didn’t hit just the USA, but the entire world, so it’s safe to say that people got lazy and experienced a lack of fitness globally. With reduced physical activity and overall increased caloric intake for close to a year or two, average weight for people all over the world increased and physical health decreased. Fast forward, as lockdowns all over the world began to lift and people started re-entering into the public, everyone came to the realization of the need for urgent physical fitness, which most conveniently came in the form of going to the gym.

Man lifting in a mask

While I’m sure there were those who went to the gym regularly prior to the covid pandemic within a close-knit gym community, those numbers spiked following the lockdown period as people flocked to local gyms to pursue their previously nonexistent fitness goals. Flash forward to today, gym culture remains prevalent and continues to grow, meaning it integrated itself into not only American culture, but global culture as the same narrative applies across the world. 

As mentioned before, no matter to what extent, most of us probably experienced some sort of negative physical change and made some sort of attempt to restore our bodies to the way it was pre-pandemic, most likely in the form of going to the gym, whether it lasted or not. Personally, I put on a good number of pounds during quarantine, which prompted the beginning of my weight loss and, therefore, my gym journey.

Currently, I’m obsessed with fitness and make it a mission to go to the gym 6 times a week. As someone who considers themself to be a part of the gym community and involved in gym culture, I know a lot of other people who are just like me. The funny thing is, most of them made their transition because of some byproduct of quarantine. Furthermore, gym influencers/creators grew to be very famous and popular alongside gym/fitness industries and other media, which was very rare before covid. Society has gotten to a point where gym talks and emphasis on physical fitness is a part of the norm, which wasn’t remotely the case before. The covid pandemic created a wave of gym and fitness culture that endures even today.

Gyms saw an increase in members/users post quarantine

I find it so interesting how it took a whole entire global pandemic to put emphasis on basic physical health and how that idea of basic physical health progressed to present day gym culture. This phenomenon somehow brought people of all different cultures, personalities, and interests under a shared umbrella that’s maintained together. The question is, “How long will all of this last?” 

At this point, my claim seems to be that the covid pandemic and quarantine created a global gym/fitness culture from a previously small community, and it still stands strong and grows today. I’m seeking to answer the category of facts and its stasis questions regarding this new cultural addition.